How To Pull Yourself Out Of A Bad Mood Dr. Peter Attia ~ Chris Williamson

about pulling yourself out of a negative mood. If someone wakes up on a morning and wrong side of the bed syndrome, what would be some of the places that you would say, "Look, here's a few things that you can do that can reliably change your mood alongside all of the other stuff that you need to do within a day"? You can't just take the day off and fly to Cancun or something.

Yeah, so remember a few minutes ago I said one of the most important things I learned in the last year with respect to this was, was that I don't want to confuse the feelings of happiness with the nu- I don't want to include the... I don't want to confuse the scent of happiness with the macronutrients of happiness, borrowing from Arthur Brooks' language. Um, I think the other equally important thing I've learned in the last year, and I, I mean, I've learned this maybe sooner, but, but I've really been better at implementing it, is, um, feelings exist for a reason. So to be clear, I'm, I'm not a person who believes that your feelings are right. I think they're wrong most of the time, but the point is they're, they're never accidental.

Something caused them.

Yeah. And I have to explore the something. And, and this is where I've become, I think, more savvy in the past year, which is when I get into a funk, which I do, I start to... I don't ignore it. I-- And I don't judge it. Those are two very important things. So that, that used to be my playbook: ignore it or judge it, ignore it or judge it, be critical of it or pretend it's not there and power through. Now it's, and I hate to do this 'cause you sound like an idiot, like Ted Lasso, it's just be curious and non-judgmental about it. Like literally just say, "Oh, Peter, it-- you seem to really be irritable, and you really seem to be lacking interest in things that normally interest you. You, you don't even feel like going out and playing with your kids. Like, you're very sullen," and this, that, and the other thing. Like, what is that about? Let's, let's, let's just think about this. Like, do you feel a loss of intimacy with this person? Are you afraid of this thing? Is there something that's a, you know, that, that is causing fear? Are you afraid of losing something? Are you a, are-- do you feel humiliated? Like, you start to go through very basic emotions that tend to be negatively valenced, and you, you go one layer beneath them. And interestingly, I mean, again, it's one of those things where if you told me this five years ago, I would've said that's impossible that I could ever figure it out, but I tend to stumble into the why. And, and then you can start to problem solve, "Oh, I'm actual- all of this is due to my fear of this thing happening." And then you can start to say, "Well, how rational is that fear?" And if it is rational, is there something you could be doing about it? And if there's not, how can you brace for this outcome? Like, so again, it's the, um... And so, so going back, the feeling itself might have been totally ridiculous and totally false, but it was a very important clue that took me back to figuring something out.

It's really cool to hear you talk about feelings in that way. This is something I'm